A Stone's Fury
by Meraculas
Summary: Her uncles refused to see her greyscale scar. Myrcella made her scarves to wear. Tommen never seemed to mind. And according to her uncle, while it turns the lips and tongue to stone if you survive, it turned all her father to stone.


Okay, first things first, A Song of Ice and Fire and the HBO television series Game of Thrones are not mine and I have no affiliation of any form to either beyond reading or watching them; I praise and admire those that do own them and know that I am nowhere near capable of something of that caliber. But here is my humble character study showing my admiration.

Also, this piece features various scenes from a larger story I am working on, but seeing as I have lost some interest in writing that work and truly adore what I had written for Shireen in it, I decided to compile some of the more touching and important scenes and share them with you. I have changed some little parts as in the original story they had importance and in this they don't, also I've added certain things that were not present in my original work to gloss over longer parts.

I hope you enjoy this little look at Shireen Baratheon and her relationship with her family.

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The Red Woman her Lord father now trusted council from was not someone Shireen Baratheon liked very much. In fact, Melisandre of Asshai scared her. Shireen had even said as much to the priestess of R'hllors face once. She comment had caused the older woman to laugh for a second, until her face softened and something that could almost – _almost_ – be called sadness entered her red eyes and she gently tapped a finger to Shireen's pert little nose and told her she was very smart. From that moment on, Shireen had decided to stay away from Melisandre, even if it meant staying away from her home at Dragonstone.

When her father travelled not a week later to King's Landing, she went with him. And when Lord Arryn died and her father stole away from the city in the night, she fought to stay. And she managed to convince her father well enough that he let her stay. Or she stayed until she had to travel with her uncle, the King, north to Winterfell.

Not that her uncle, either of her uncles, cared much for her. Uncle Renly was kind enough, but she knew he liked pretty things, and there was nothing pretty about her square jaw, jutting ears, and half decayed face. And her Uncle Robert didn't care much for anything other than hunting and whoring, so Shireen figured she could forgive him a little more than Renly. But at least Renly tried to be nice to her, even if she knew it was forced.

Shireen didn't care much for her aunt, Queen Cersei, or her vile cousin Joffrey – who Shireen was certain made the Mad King look sane – but her other cousins, Myrcella and Tommen, were both very nice, or at least to her. Tommen was a little childish, preferring dolls to swords and food to books, but Myrcella was very nice to her. She could be a little stuck up, but then Shireen figured that that was because she was a princess, so she forgave her cousin for that.

Sighing, she pulled the scarf that covered her half dead face, closer to her skin and stepped out of the wheel house she had ridden north in. By the time she had reached her cousins in front of the Stark children, the Queen and Joffrey had departed along with Lady Stark. Her uncle and Lord Stark had left prior to the Queen. It suddenly struck her as odd, how Shireen more often than not referred her aunt as the Queen and the King as her uncle. She shook her head slightly to shake the thought from her mind and smiled kindly at her cousins. Tommen waddled over and gave her a hug, while Myrcella stood in the background with a kind smile on her face. Once Tommen had released her, Myrcella embraced her in quick hug before she turned and introduced her to the Stark children.

Once Tommen had released her, Myrcella embraced her in quick hug before she turned and introduced her to the Stark children. Winterfell's heir was named Robb, while the other daughter was Sansa, the two younger boys were Bran and baby Rickon, who was not actually a baby, but thinking of him as the baby helped Shireen tell the difference between Bran and him. She bowed to each of the Stark children and then introduced herself. The Greyjoy boy, who was either Maron or Theon - she could never remember if it was the middle or the youngest of Balon Greyjoy's sons that had survived –, asked if her father had accompanied her uncle, though he phrased his question differently.

Shireen responded politely, though she selected to leave the information of her father's stealing away from King's Landing hidden. Instead she only said that he had matters to handle back in Dragonstone that prevented him from accompanying them.

Theon, as Winterfell's heir clarified following his question, broke the slight silence that had followed her response, "My I ask after your scarf, or is it just that your ears are cold?"

"I have plenty of ear, so yes they are, but that is not the reason for it." She replied with a smile. She considered dropping the scarf and displaying the damage the greyscale had done to her face. After another conversation with Melisandre, just after the Red Woman had come to Dragonstone, and before she had begun to scare Shireen, she had told her to wear the damage like a badge to show that she had defeated death; but she still liked to hide the dead skin whenever she first meets people as it can turn them off.

She had still not decided whether she should display the decayed skin when the oldest Stark boy said, "You have us intrigued lady, what could the reason possibly be?"

Raising her hands to the sides of her scarf she began to lower it, but Myrcella reached up and pulled her hands away, "You don't want to do that, Shireen." Myrcella was in some ways like uncle Renly, she loved pretty things, and Shireen's face was anything but pretty. Her golden haired cousin always shied away from her face, Shireen had received many a hand stitched scarf from the princess who was but a year younger than herself, and despite the clear meaning behind each gift, Shireen treasured them. Perhaps that was why the scar she now wore had been made by Myrcella.

"It is my face, and my only dislike of it is that I seemed to inherit the worst features from both my parents. I'm certain that were I to have another sibling they would have the best features." Shireen carefully scolded Myrcella as she reached up and dropped the scarf from her head.

Baby Rickon gasped and hid behind his eldest brother when he saw the greyscale, Bran's brow furrowed as if he was trying to figure out why her face looked the way it did. Arya smiled at her, and Sansa gasped and hid her gaping mouth behind both hands. Robb and Theon both stared surprised.

"What happened?" Asked another boy, he looked to be the same age as Winterfell's heir and he looked more like Lord Stark than the heir, which made Shireen think that this was the Stark bastard.

"Greyscales." She answered him simply after shaking the eerie thought from her head and holding her head just a little higher.

Arya smiled brighter and looked to her older sister and told her smugly, "Now I'm not the ugliest person in Winterfell."

"Arya!" Sansa gasped horrified by what her sister proclaimed. But the dark haired girl's remark caused Shireen laugh, and Sansa turned to look at her confused.

She saw her uncle emerge from the crypts, Lord Stark just a pace behind him at that moment. Both her uncle's disliked the scarring from the greyscales, so she returned the scarf to around her face, because she had also spoke the truth about her large ears being cold. Robert Baratheon saw her then, or maybe he had ignored her until she had replaced the scarf around her face.

"Shireen, I had forgotten that you had joined us in our journey north." Her large uncle exclaimed as he wrapped her in a hug. He was either very drunk already or putting on a show of warmth for his hosts. Either way, Shireen didn't mind, but if it was a show she might as well make the most of it.

"It is easy to forget your little niece when you have a kingdom to rule, uncle." She informed him warmly, laughter on her lips and a smile in her eyes.

"Nonsense, why I plainly remember when your father brought you to meet me for the first time. We had all just returned from destroying those bastard Greyjoy's, I'd never actually seen stern Stannis smile until he had you in his arms." He told her before he turned to Lord Stark, "Remember that Ned, all those damn Ironborn's bleeding out into their precious sea. Ha, what I wouldn't give for a good war."

Shireen chanced a look at Theon, his face was expressionless. In fact, Shireen wouldn't hesitate to call the look on his face as dead.

She broke through her uncle's fond recollection of slaughtering members of House Greyjoy to say, "Yes, but father didn't smile much after the greyscales afflicted me."

Mentioning the greyscales was a sure way to silence any member of her family, even the nasty Queen and Joffrey. Robert's face softened as he patted her in what Shireen was sure was supposed to be a gentle manner on the shoulder and said, "Not many could smile after that." Shireen bite her tongue to refrain from mentioning that her uncle had sure found a way to smile.

The journey south had been worse than the journey north, but at least Shireen had had a companion. She might not have enjoyed all the things she did with Arya, or Arya with her, but Shireen made sure that they were near inseparable. Nymeria, Arya's direwolf, was a wild thing but she spent all her time with Arya.

It was at the Trident, the place where her uncle slew the last named and ruling Targaryen Prince, Rhaegar, that things changed. Arya refused to speak with her, blaming her as much as anyone else in her family for the death of Sansa's direwolf and the butcher's boy that Arya was fond of playing with.

In time they reached King's Landing, and in time Shireen returned to the facade of normal life she maintained in the city. Oh, she knew full well what type of games the Lords and Ladies played within the fortified walls, but so long she neither interfered or became important, she figured she was safe; but all the same, she tried to keep herself appraised of how the game board looked at the end of each day. It was a tiring thing for a girl of nine to do, but her father liked the information, as well Varys and Lord Tyrion seemed to have a soft spot for her, which made things a little easier.

She mourned for her new friends but now distant friends when news reached her of Lord Stark's injury at the hands of Ser Jaime, but if what she heard about Lady Stark taking Lord Tyrion captive was true, well, friends were always dangerous to have and impossible to keep in Kings Landing.

And then things became even worse.

Her uncle Renly woke her early in the morning to tell her of her uncle Robert's injury during the hunt and how he wasn't likely to survive. Shireen froze, not sure how to react. She had never been particularly close to her uncle, but still, she couldn't lose the fat man whose large belly jiggled when he roared his impressive laugh. She cried into her uncle's shoulder for a good long while.

When Renly finally left her, she dressed quickly, intending to pay her dying uncle a visit. She was half way to his chambers when a guard caught her, he handed her a letter. She broke the seal and read it quickly. She thanked him and ran the rest of the way to her uncle's chambers, screw propriety, she refused to leave the city as her father commanded without seeing her uncle one last time.

She begged Ser Barristan to let her into the King's chamber, genuine tears rolling from her blue eyes that were near identical to her uncle's. A lesson she learned early in life, a man would do anything to avoid a woman's tears, and despite not yet being considered a woman, it was still true.

She entered the dark room slowly, not sure what to expect, but the smell of death was strong. Her uncle barked a weak demand to know who was there. "It's me, uncle." She squeaked through her fast rolling tears. He looked too weak and pitiful lying on his bed. Nothing like the man she knew, and nothing like a King should be.

"Shireen?" He questioned, "What in blazes are you doing here?"

She tried to smile through her sadness as she reached his bedside and took one of his large hands in both her tiny ones, but it just wouldn't reach her eyes, and with her lips being stone, the smile was near impossible on them, but she forced them to shape accordingly despite the pain. "I'm as stubborn as you it would seem, I refused to believe uncle Renly until I saw for myself."

Robert barked a rough laugh that turned to a wheeze, "You shouldn't be here, girl, this is no place for a Lady."

"Nor is this the place for a King." She answered barely audible through her choked sobs.

"Indeed, but it can't be helped." Her uncle answered, "Gods," He muttered touching her greyscale scar which she had neglected to cover for him when she left her chambers, "I'll always remember the day Stannis brought you before me, I'd never seen that grime bastard smile before; and then I received his letter saying you'd come down with the greyscales. He hadn't even cried when our parents died, but I saw those tear stains on the page. It turns the lips and tongue to stone if you survive, but it turned all of him to stone as well. You know your father loves you, right?"

Shireen forced her lips and eyes to smile, but try as she might, she couldn't force herself to answer so she nodded.

"Good," Robert said, "And I know I haven't shown it enough, but I love you too. Gods, have I ever even told you? Don't answer that, I know I haven't, but I do. You'll probably want to go back to Dragonstone after this, so when you do tell your statue of a father, my idiot brother, that I'm glad I didn't have to suffer his grime face as I died. And tell him, the King's last demand was that he shows how much he loves you, okay."

"I will, uncle." She finally managed to choke out as she gave her uncle a gentle hug, mindful of where the boar had skewered him. "I promise, I'll tell him that when I see him."

"Good, now off with you, I'll not have my favourite niece crying all over my death bed. I'd like it to be dry." He ordered, waving her towards the door.

At the door, Shireen looked back and managed a full smile across her scared face, "I love you uncle Robert, King or not, I love you and I don't want you to forget it."

"I know, girl, just so long as you miss me as well."

She laughed as whipped some of the tears from her eyes, "That's goes without saying I think." Sobering, she looked at her uncle for the last time and blew him a kiss, "I love you, goodbye."

"Goodbye, Shireen." He replied before she turned from his room.

Ser Barristan closed the door behind her and then caught her when her knees gave out beneath her. He held her as she cried and let her wipe her tears on his pure white cloak when she said she was finished.

Several hours later, she stood on the deck of Ser Davos Seaworth's ship, sailing away from Kings Landing just as the bells began tolling to news of her uncle's death. She hadn't packed much, only a few dresses and a doll. It was a stupid thing to want to bring, but her uncle had gifted it to her on her last name day and she couldn't bear to not bring it with him on his death bed. And as the bells tolled their sad news, she held the doll close to her heart, remembering her promise to never forget him no matter what happened next.


End file.
